


Long Con on Gravity

by immortalitylost



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alcohol Thievery, Blatant Flirtation, First Meetings, Gambling, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inception Attempt, M/M, Manipulation, Minor Arthur/Eames/OFC, Original Character Death(s), Pre-Inception, Totem Origins, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25625479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalitylost/pseuds/immortalitylost
Summary: What do you want to bet?Were sweeter words ever spoken? More dangerous?Eames is bad for Arthur. Eames is bad for Arthur and this will not end well.Question is, how do you stop falling when you're already midair?Questionis, how the hell do you keep yourself from meeting up with the ground?
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19
Collections: Inception Big Bang 2020





	Long Con on Gravity

“You need a vacation. Look at you—all that stress in your shoulders.” 

Eames slaps big hands down on Arthur’s shoulders, which only tense more under the touch; at the feel of Eames behind him, leaning in.

“Focus.” 

“I’m perfectly focused,” Eames assures, thumbs digging into knotted muscles cruelly—unfairly. Arthur clamps down on a groan. “Carry on. Tell us your plan, then.” 

At least they’re alone. 

Arthur doesn’t carry on—knows Eames well enough to know that this isn’t over. And as if on cue, Eames leans his chin on his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. The tension works its way up to Arthur’s jaw—and yes, there it is, a vague mumbling too close to Arthur’s ear like Eames is pretending to be inspecting Arthur’s changed plans for himself, since Arthur won’t share, just mouthing along like he’s reading—actually paying attention. Arthur feels a finger batting at his earlobe. He closes his eyes, a headache threatening.

“ _We_ need a vacation.” Eames says through a grin Arthur can hear.

“ _You_ need a vacation—”

“I _do_ need a vacation. How kind of you to notice, Arthur. And what’s a vacation without a bit of lovely scenery, hmm?”

Arthur frowns. Draws in a breath, mouth opening to tell Eames exactly where Arthur _wishes_ the man would consider vacationing, but—

He wakes. In a bed but not his bed. He rubs at his eyes, gasping in the dark of a room that’s not his room.

He can’t remember the precise details of his own room anymore; the one in the home he owned stateside—had built beam by beam over years, years ago. If he had to create his own room in his own house as a backdrop for a dream, he’d get it all wrong, all the little details, and he’d never even know the difference. His head is too full of the insignificant and oh-so-important trivialities of other people’s lives anymore to allow room for any of his own. And he hasn’t been home in....

A while.

He should probably care more about that.

Instead he gets up. Makes coffee. Slicks his hair back with cold water from the bathroom tap to keep it out of his eyes while...while he works. What else? And the coffee washes the loneliness back down into his gut and warms him enough for the moment. He should probably care more about that, too. But he chooses, one more infinite time, not to. 

It’s better not to acknowledge the loneliness. Easier to pretend he’d never noticed. To let it wither in the shadow of the work he throws himself into.

_Never really dies, though, does it?_

Arthur snorts out a laugh and pushes against his eyelids; watches the patterns. It’s all patterns. Eames in his head, haunting him, coming in all the louder—clearer—now that Arthur has Eames’ voice in his ear every day as well.

Together again after all this time. Together again. Colleagues. Everything is so much harder now that Eames is so close.

Arthur finds his pocket; fingers his totem. He holds it, wrapped in his fist, against his lips; lets it fall to the table and opens his eyes to watch it tumble, knowing it will land on—

“Aces.”

The word is spoken close enough that Arthur turns on reflex.

“What?” He heard the word clearly, he asks for clarification only to buy himself a bit of time to process. Aces. It still doesn’t make any sense. “Yeah, I’m not playing.” he says, giving up. “Do you want to—?” He motions toward the table.

The man waves off Arthur’s polite offer to let him through, eyes glued to the chips on the green felt of the craps table. In this moment of distraction, Arthur studies the man, does it on instinct, out of an old habit that he doesn’t bother to keep in check now, with this stranger—handsome stranger, he amends; clean cut, well dressed. There’s a smug smile there supporting soft lips and hard eyes are hidden behind a glimmer of amusement. The full force of those eyes, that stare, snaps up to meet Arthur’s gaze and the smile spreads softer. White teeth peek through, crooked and somehow more attractive for it.

“ _Why_ aren’t you playing?” The man asks as if this amuses him—as if they’re old friends, and with so much comfortable familiarity that Arthur has the urge to check his pockets. 

He doesn’t. Instead, he laughs without mirth. Spreads his arms wide. Replies as if they _are_ old friends just catching up at the end of a day’s exploits in Vegas. 

“Flat broke,” he says. Wonders afterward at his own gullibility, getting suckered so easily.

“Mmm,” the man hums, stepping _just_ too close. “And the night still so young. Bad streak of luck?”

Arthur holds the pause. Holds the man’s concentration. Then _he_ smiles, quick and sharp. Screw it. The man wants to play, let’s play.

“Terrible.” He eyes this stranger, weighing his options. “The worst. Seems to be looking up now, though.” He looks up at the man, pointely.

That smug smile hitches a centimeter wider. Arthur makes it a point to be caught staring at those lips, just to be perfectly clear. Flicks his eyes up to meet the man’s stare in challenge. _Yeah. Let’s play._

“Is that so?” A tilt of the head; eyes boring deeper while those white teeth bite that soft lip and—Arthur knows he’s being played with, okay? Toyed with. He’s not one for games—not usually. But this… This tonight…. 

The calculating bright eyes, the lips and the teeth, the jump of a brow in challenge. Tonight is different. 

“Care to place a bet for me, then?” the man asks, and Arthur doesn’t leave. He doesn’t excuse himself.

Tonight, Arthur’s interested.

And he’s flustered, too, he knows. Knocked off kilter. It’s that stare, pinning him down, making him feel…. 

He should walk away. He should be up in his room already. The job. Work on the job starts early tomorrow. He should care.

“Test your luck?” the man continues, and what he really means is _dare you_.

Arthur knows he’s being baited. He should care. Instead he huffs a laugh and smiles with teeth. Rubs the back of his neck to still the slight nervous tremble in his hand that shouldn’t be there—that should be grounds for cutting and running and hiding in his room till sunrise. He does all these things because maybe he’s fishing, too.

He’s not in control with this man. But that’s the point.

“Bet on what?”

A step closer. A voice just taller than a whisper. Arthur’s not in control right now and the thought alone is seductive.

“A bit on this, a bit on that,” the man says. “I trust you to invest wisely. Of course, when I go to roll my turn you’ll bet the maximum on aces and come into some _very_ good luck.” 

The man backs off a bit at this; doesn’t step back—pulls back rather, just to get a better read, eyebrows raised in anticipation of a favorable answer. “What do you say?” he says, all charm.

Asshole. 

Arthur huffs a chuckle; pockets his hands. It’s easier to play it cool with the evidence of his nerves hidden away from eyes too sharp to be trusted not to bleed any weakness.

“I say, what’s my cut?”

The amusement in those eyes only intensifies, the smile finally blooming full.

“Why, that’d be ten percent, as befits a lovely assistant such as yourself—plus whatever your little bets win you beforehand.” He waves off the trivialities.

Arthur withdraws his hands from his pockets and crosses his arms in annoyance, about to renegotiate the hell out of those terms because lovely assistant, indeed. He’ll be lovely for thirty percent. He opens his mouth.

The man ducks in and kisses Arthur’s cheek. Arthur’s train of thought is expertly derailed.

Arthur closes his mouth when the man leans back and out comes a neat stack of chips from a jacket pocket—chips that the man presses softly into Arthur’s gentled-loose hand with both of his. The hands are warm; smooth. The man leans in again, too close, just waiting for the answer he already knows Arthur is going to give. They both know that Arthur will—

“Aces.” the man repeats softly, eyes locked with Arthur’s.

Arthur merely lifts his own brow in a way he hopes is derisive enough and withdraws his hand—and the chips—from that warm uncalloused grasp. Nods once—fine—and turns to join the game. 

Whatever his little bets win him beforehand, huh? He smiles and lays down his chips to be changed. “Gonna make you regret _that_.”

“I’m already regretting this,” the man whispers in his ear and Arthur _still_ hasn’t gotten his name and if it weren’t for the four neat whiskeys in his bloodstream and the cock up his ass he’d be really bothered by that fact, he’s sure.

The two loaded dice the man had thrown down on the bedstand rattle gently with each pounding thrust the man drives into him, hard but controlled. He hadn’t expected that control. Hadn’t counted on the neat meticulous pulling apart this man is inflicting on him. Arthur is more open now, messier, than he’s allowed in a while—and that’s one more thing he’s not caring about tonight. Fuck it. He thrusts up into the man’s latest advance; lets his head loll back into the pillow. The man nips at his exposed neck just the softest bit too hard and Arthur whines. _Whines_ . He’s ruined—his neat stitches ripped and the carefully tailored cloth of him pulled apart into pattern pieces, his secrets laid bare for inspection. That’s what it feels like now—what it _is_ like. Moans flowing free, muscles burning and joints all moving smoothly to open up farther or to pull in closer. Movements all conflict and paradox and brain in no state to cast a tie vote between coming and going, Arthur digs into this no-name man all the harder.

Skin under his nails and blood—physical proof—for his troubles. If he lets go, where will he be? Will he _be_?

“Please,” Arthur pants, and even he doesn’t know precisely what he’s asking for at this point. “Please, please, please—”

Tipping closer. Pushing and pushing and pushing him closer. _Please please please_.

Whatever he needs, his release seems to supply it; satisfies him enough to stop begging at least. And he’s left panting, cold now that the man has rolled off of him; pulled out of him. Empty. Fucked out and staring at the two red dice on the smooth warm wood of the bedside table while he waits on some ability to function.

His text tone pulls him out of the moment and back to reality; has him scooping his phone from the pocket of his crumpled discarded pants on the floor beside the bed. Work. Who else? He squints at the screen.

_Job’s off. I’ll be in touch._

“Fuck.”

The man rolls to face him; Arthur clocks it in his peripheral—feels the man’s stare burning patterns into the skin of his face.

“No, see, we’ve already done that part. On to cuddling now, love. Do keep up.”

And what do you want to bet the guy’s smiling again? Arthur lowers his phone to his chest, head turning to see just how smug the smile is. 

“I don’t cuddle.”

It’s smug, alright, and it only grows.

“Suit yourself.” The man rolls to his back again and pillows his head with his hands. “Work, is it?” he asks the ceiling. “Big meeting?”

Arthur should just nod and put on his pants and shirt and not give the guy one more syllable—make it clear that it’s time for the man to vacate the premises. But he doesn’t. He’s too comfortable to move. It’s _his_ goddamn bed, he’ll stay in it if he wants. And he doesn’t _need_ to answer. Doesn’t _need_ to say a word. Doesn’t owe this stranger anything.

“Cancelled meeting, actually,” he says. _Idiot._ So much for keeping his mouth shut.

“Is _that_ right?” The man’s head rolls Arthur’s way and his smile turns pointed. “Nothing to stop you staying up past your bedtime then, is there?”

He’s pulled up against Arthur again. His hand hovers for a moment before scooping the phone from Arthur’s grip and Arthur lets him; lets him toss the phone gently to land on the carpet with Arthur’s crumpled, forgotten pants.

“Won’t be needing that,” the man says, moving once more to hover over Arthur, the man’s knee sliding up between Arthur’s warm and heavy and still-twitching thighs, finding them easily moved. Arthur exhales through his teeth at how easily moved. Shit. The man’s arms cage Arthur; he’s stuck there, between right arm and left, between soft bed below and hard chest above. Between yes and no. Yes please. No, please. Yes. No. Trapped there.

Secure there.

Before Arthur realizes he should care that he doesn’t mind being trapped like this—should voice some sort of protest—the man is smiling again. Is sliding down and mouthing at Arthur’s cock. And by that time, all of Arthur’s common sense has abandoned him. Abra kadabra. Some trick.

“Fuuuuck.”

And _that_ gets him a chuckle that runs up through his sensitive nerves and doesn’t make thinking any easier. That mouth, those lips, that...chuckle is…is so fucking— And Arthur bites into his hand, unwilling—unwilling to let this man unravel him. Not again. No, not again. He shakes his head and bites down harder. He can feel the sound piling up inside him; the moans he won’t give away.

“You know, that last bite was positively pornographic,” the man says, licking an invisible veneer of coffee from his ridiculously plump upper lip and leaning back in his chair—to better appreciate Arthur’s chewing no doubt.

Prick.

They’re sitting in the shadiest corner of a too-bright diner and Arthur hasn’t tasted pancakes this good in _years_. He doesn’t reply. His mouth is full. He hadn’t asked for company—guy wouldn’t take a hint. Guy wouldn’t take a flat-out order to leave him alone. To leave the room. To let him sleep. To stay off Arthur’s side of the bed, thank you _very_ much. To stop touching and—

Not that Arthur had given an order—not exactly.

Not that he should have to.

He takes another syrup-soaked bite. The man watches him, sprawled in his chair like a prince, leg crossed and sipping his too-sweet coffee. Arthur sips his in retaliation. Black. Bitter. He spears another bite of his stack.

“I find breakfast orders to be very indicative of character,” the man says, sliding his coffee mug from his right hand to his left and leaning in closer, still watching. He lifts the mug to sip. “Do you wonder what it is you’re telling me, right now?”

Arthur doesn’t. Not in the least. And he’s spared the indignity of being told anyway when his phone’s text tone cuts through the kitchen noise and the buzz of morning grumblings around them.

_Meet up in an hour. Same location._

Arthur frowns.

“Meeting’s back on.” He takes another bite and chews it slowly; washes it down with bitter brew. “I’ve gotta—”

“Not to worry, love. Not to worry.” The man waves Arthur’s nonexistent concern off. “I’ll be fine left to my own devices, I assure you.”

The man takes another sip through that damned smile, still staring. He gestures to Arthur’s forgotten stack of cooling pancakes.

“Surely you have time to finish?” he asks, “You wouldn’t deprive me?”

Arthur scoffs. He pushes his breakfast away and rises. The pancakes are too sweet. Too much for the coffee to combat.

His breakfast is out of balance.

“Wouldn’t I?” He looks down into the man’s upturned, amused, face. Shakes his head, suppressing a smile. He’d just had a thought; reaches into his pocket.

“Can’t say it hasn’t been fun,” he says, letting the smile slip its leash just a hair. One of the chips the man had passed him, the one he’d saved back last night like a sentimental fool when cashing in his vast winnings, bounces onto the table and spins to a loud rest. “That ought to cover breakfast. Least I can do after making more off your little scam than _you_ managed to.”

The man doesn’t smile or frown or argue or anything Arthur was prepared for after his little dig. The guy merely picks the chip up and studies it, thoughtful. Arthur’s grin just sort of congeals there on his face, forgotten while he waits for the guy to react. To do something. Anything.

“However shall I find you again?” The man says softly, kidding Arthur, but not as much as he wants Arthur to believe. 

The smile dies. Anything but that.

“You seem like a resourceful guy,” Arthur says, meaning it. “Surprise me.” And does he mean that too? Does he _want_ to see the guy again?

The stranger's eyes close. The chip dances from knuckle to knuckle.

“I could always follow you,” the man says, still quiet, thoughtful—it’s not quite a threat. His eyes open and flick up to Arthur’s face.

“I’m sure that would prove interesting.” Arthur watches the man’s face. Watches the chip. Watches, wondering if the guy thinks that just sitting there spinning some party trick is enough to put Arthur on edge.

Is it? That what he's feeling right now? On edge?

The chip dances, disappears into the man’s palm, reappears to dance across his knuckles once more.

“You should really work on your spelling,” Arthur says, instead of just leaving. The chip disappears and doesn’t appear again, though the man’s palm is empty when he opens it.

“Hmm, well, the moment anyone apart from you notices, darling, I just might.” A beatific smile is thrown Arthur’s way and the man waves him off with a halfhearted wink over his raised coffee mug. He looks distracted, eyes unfocused, and takes a slow sip off his sweet drink, waiting politely for Arthur to leave.

Too sweet.

Arthur leaves the man behind with the saccharine stack of pancakes. He can’t go to work like this. He’s too messy right now; mind scattered. He needs to clean house. Clear his head. Just for a little while. He has time.

He would have time, if he hadn’t wasted it on the stupidest— If, back in his room, he could have just got himself to stop staring at the single red die that had been left, bold as spilt blood, on his warm wood bedstand. He’d wasted all his time in a half-angry half-aroused state of shock.

“What’s that doing there?” 

Arthur knows he won’t get an answer. Can’t stop himself asking anyway.

Amira throws up her dainty brown hands in aggravation, then scoops long dark waves back over her shoulders in annoyance. She huffs, irritated, just to make sure Arthur gets the point. “The question of the day, my friend. Though I have to admit I was hoping _you’d_ answer that question for _me_.”

“Someone tampered with the blueprint.” Arthur knew he was stating the obvious. He was clearly still in shock. “How?” And _that_ was the real question, wasn’t it. Along with _who_ and _why_ and _when_. And trying to process every scenario that would let something like this happen is the real reason he doesn’t have the processing speed to say anything useful at the moment. There are too many scenarios to consider and none that make any kind of sense. “Where’s Graham?”

The rumble of the elevator gate sliding open on its gritty track has him turning and squinting into the shadows across the room. If she changed things— It isn’t her style and he knows it, knows he’s grasping at straws, but if she _did_ change things this late in the game—

“Graham?” He calls out to the advancing footfalls. “We’ve got a problem. Got a set of tampered blueprints and if you know about this and didn’t tell us then we've _really_ got a problem.” He squints into the shadows, trying to make her out. “The plan was solid,” he says, defensive, he knows, but— “You can’t just—”

“Oh,” a recently-familiar voice says from the still-deep shadows. “The plan was marvelous, Arthur, if you go in for that sort of thing. Top notch. The problem wasn’t the plan. No no no, it was the _job_ that was all wrong.”

Arthur’s squint evolves into a glare. He knows exactly who’s speaking. Can still see the slow smile pitched to match that smarmy drawl.

_However shall I find you again?_

He should have guessed. He raises the glare by a frown at the use of his name—he hadn’t given his name. Everything else, maybe. Not that. 

Some consolation.

_I could always follow you._

What is this?

The stairwell door flies open hard enough to crack the concrete of the wall as it hits and Graham comes striding in, throwing the briefest look toward the mystery man who had monopolized the elevator and forced her to use the stairs—giving him the subtlest raised eyebrow of disapproval. Her dark face with its hard features remains otherwise impassive, as always, and she doesn’t spare him another glance. She comes to a stop, hands on her hips. Gestures back to the man with a nod, her loose afro accentuating the motion.

“We’ve been outbid,” she says. “By this asshole.”

“Outbid?” Amira says, still holding up her defiled blueprints. “What does that—? Who is he?” She turns to the man, who’s finally stepped into the light. It’s him. Confirmation. Of course it’s him. Had Arthur thought for one moment it would be anyone else? 

“Who are you?” Amira goes on, frowning at the intruder directly now.

“Oh, me, well…I'd be your new forger.” He stops his stroll before her and grabs up her hand to kiss it. “Hello. Eames. And you must be Amira. Heard all about you, of course. Love your work.” He nods to the blueprint that her slowly-clenching fist is wrinkling. “I fixed that problem in the center for you, as well. Simply in need of a touch of outside perspective. Think nothing of it.” He looks around the room, dropping her hand. “And I wouldn’t say outbid, that’s hardly fair.” He looks briefly back at Graham, smiling. “More like outsold. Outseduced. I actually renegotiated for much better pay—you were being robbed.” He clicks his tongue, eyes finally finding Arthur’s and sticking, smile growing.

“Mmhmm,” Graham says, crossing her arms. “And _why_ are we being paid more, now, exactly? Tell them that part.”

Eames’ smile shifts with excitement. Arthur is beginning to hate that smile. Their eyes remain locked.

“Well,” Eames says, looking away, unbothered, to glance back at Graham. “Inception shouldn’t come cheap, should it? Seeing as it’s supposed to be impossible.”

“You talked the old man into inception,” Arthur says, not really questioning. Somehow it’s all too easy to believe.

“You’ll find that I can be very persuasive when I choose to be.”

The eyes are back. A flick of that smile, there and gone again, and Arthur believes him. And that’s the problem. That’s going to be a problem.

Sure as hell not going to let _this_ guy know that, of course.

“I’m impressed, Mr. Eames.”

“Well that sounds a bit ridiculous,” Eames says, hands in his jacket and gesture spreading it as wide as his smile. “Surely there’s no need for such formality, seeing as we’re _colleagues_ now.”

And Arthur knows he isn’t imagining the way the man stresses their relationship. Colleagues. He turns his head to meet Graham’s eye.

“This isn’t going to work.”

“I’m wounded at your lack of trust, Arthur.” 

Eames sips at his drink, not really appreciating it, Arthur can tell. Eames looks to Arthur again and smiles, shaking his head as if _he’s_ the one searching for patience. “It was a good plan, alright, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that, well, in my considerable experience, plans are ever only good for tripping over once they inevitably go wrong. They’re practically useless.”

“Useless.” Arthur unclenches his jaw to spare his enamel. Takes a sip of stolen whiskey from a stolen bar glass and appreciates it a sight more than Eames. His shoes feel loose dangling over the roof’s edge and he knocks his heels against the solid wall of the hotel.

“I did say _practically_ useless.” Eames smiles winningly, then goes on. “You’re telling me you’ve _once_ been under and successfully executed a plan, from start to finish, with not a snag to be seen?”

Arthur tilts his glass; watches the play of dim artificial light through the amber of the liquid, the syrupy cling of it to the sides. The stuff has good legs on it. Eames has good taste, in theory at least, if not in practice. Arthur watches him take another dispassionate sip.

“Twice, actually,” he says, mostly suppressing a smile.

And then even he has to laugh, caught up in the sudden spill of mirth from Eames. And he’s laughing at more than just his answer. He’s laughing at this entire situation—him and Eames on the hotel roof under the vast night sky with a chuckle shared between them. How had it come to this? He scrubs at his face absently—is up too late again. Up to no good. They’re liable to be kicked out of the hotel. At this rate it’s as inevitable as a plan falling apart. He laughs harder.

He doesn’t really care. About any of it. Can’t force himself to try and care. And Eames is at it again. Talking. Forever talking.

“What we need is enough information that once we’re in, we can play it by ear. Improvise when need be. We need jazz down there, not a bloody march.”

The usually-dry air is sticky, as if the heavy clouds above might deliver on their promise of rain. Arthur sets his glass down in the meager space between them and unbuttons his sleeves to roll them up. He’s still neat about it too, out of habit mostly, even when he’s a little drunk. When he’s done and he leans back on his hands to look pointlessly up into the roiling sky, orange-tinged by sodium lights, he feels the weight of fingertips brushing the fabric of his shirt and forcing it, in turn, to brush against the skin of his chest. And he doesn’t mind. He may still be neat but he is a little drunk—drunk enough to be up here on this roof staring up at a sky that threatens to drown the desert. Drunk enough to repeat last night’s bad decision. Last night’s and the night before that and—

He’s still neat. Neat on the outside. He can feel the messiness within, though, piling and piling and piling up in there and— He can feel the mess he’s trailing behind him, too, there at his back. Messes like that always catch up. He knows well enough to be neat.

Just how many bad decisions can he get away with, though? When will his luck finally run out?

There’s a buzz in his teeth—this craving—compulsion—to find out. It’s always there. It’s the reason he can’t let himself get messy like this. Sloppy like this. Enmeshed as he is now with someone that doesn’t even know the word careful.

Eames is bad for Arthur. Eames is bad for Arthur and this will not end well.

“Should’ve known you’d be a fan of jazz,” he says, pretending to ignore the deliberate brush of his shirt across his suddenly-sensitive skin.

Eames is chuckling again, the sound low and round like water over smooth rocks—whiskey over ice. And those fingers are much too deft, too nimble for their thickness—three buttons are undone, then four. And they never actually touch skin, delegating touch instead to the fabric resting between them.

Arthur grabs that hand at four. Four is enough.

“Anyway, I got everything,” Arthur says, dropping Eames’ hand in a way that gets it away without flinging it away like he'd almost done. His palm buzzes with the contact with Eames' skin. “There isn’t any more information to get. I have her schedule, down to when she takes a dump every day. I have her preferred brand of toilet paper for Christ’s sake. Everything. I’ve done my job.”

“Things!” Eames says, laughing. “Precisely. You’ve illustrated the problem for me brilliantly, Arthur, thank you. Things. You’ve detailed every _thing_ in this woman’s life. Even the people she sees throughout the day are nothing more than timestamps and names in your report. We need her…her relationships, you understand? We need to know how she feels about those relationships. What drives her.”

Eames' hand finds Arthur’s thigh near the knee and this time Arthur can feel the heat of it through his thin pants; the weight of the palm. Still not quite touching, the two of them. Still separate.

“Who does this woman _want_?” Eames asks, a quiet breath across Arthur’s ear.

The large hand skims effortlessly up along the silky material of Arthur’s pants. Up and up and comes finally to the sculpture in relief that Arthur’s cock has become—has _been_ , let’s not mince words, since Eames first began touching him. Eames’ fingers brush the length of it and Arthur goes still. The city noises that had floated up from below fade, unimportant. Arthur’s pulse beats like small waves finding shore. Softly. Indistinctly. Quickly.

“Who does she _need_?”

Those surprisingly deft fingers pop the button on Arthur’s pants and find their way inside quicker than thought—than Arthur’s thoughts have become at least, mired as they are by lack of blood flow. Quickly enough those fingers find skin, finally connect, and Arthur shudders at the feel of it after _waiting_ for so long in anticipation. The hand wraps his cock, skin to skin, and the heat is overwhelming. Arthur reaches to knock the hand away again— _not here_ —but only manages to overbalance and grab up handfuls of whatever mildly-trashy European shirt Eames is clad in today. He holds there. Grounds himself there, with that ridiculous fabric.

When Eames moves his soft palm—dry and uncomfortable and fucking perfect—over him, Arthur’s head falls forward against that chest. And once more he promises not to fall apart. He fails, of course. One more time. He utterly fails. He only comes back to himself when the stolen glass he’d been drinking from is bumped gracelessly from the roof’s edge halfway through their little act and the crash below kills the moment; calls attention from the ground and has them scrambling a hasty retreat into the building—Arthur hardly able to run in his condition and his quickly-buttoned pants a torture with every step. Both of them smile, both panting, regardless of everything, both breathless with peals of silent laughter as they flee through the tastefully-lit halls.

Once they’re back at their room—might as well call it their room with two toothbrushes confronting Arthur in the bathroom every morning—they pick right back up where they had left off on the roof. And as always, Eames pulls Arthur apart, piece by piece, with those large, soft, clever hands. And Arthur lets him. He lets him.

“Fine,” he says after, in the quiet that doesn’t have a right to be as comfortable as it is. “I’ll do a little digging.”

That whiskey-rocks chuckle again, rumbling over Arthur in the dark.

“Knew you loved me, dear.”

And Arthur, as always, can all but hear the smug smile Eames speaks through. He stares out the window at the glowing net of city cast below.

“It’s going to rain.”

Eames rolls to make his own assessment. Props his chin on his hand on Arthur’s chest which strains under the weight of the man. He hums and pushes off to fall back into his side of the bed. The fact that by unspoken agreement Eames had claimed half of Arthur’s bed is frustrating, but not nearly as frustrating as the fact that Arthur hasn’t said a word about it; has enabled it. Arthur is left frustrated in the beat of silence he’s too stubborn to break, just waiting for Eames to throw down the last word like some sort of gauntlet for Arthur to take up.

He’s not disappointed.

“What are you willing to bet?”

“Drinks tonight at the bar,” Arthur says absently, frowning.

Now is not the time. Eames has no sense of time and place.

“No no no no, it has to be something a good deal more interesting than _that_ , love. Use your imagination.”

“What we need is less imagination from _you,”_ Graham says, “and more professionalism from you both.”

She looks back at them levelly from the passenger’s seat, staring first one of them then the other down easily. In the driver’s seat, Amira bites down on a smile and Arthur shares a glance with her in the rear view mirror before her eyes return to the road.

“Only a bit of fun,” Eames says smoothly, waving off Graham’s cool assessment. “No harm intended.”

“No harm done,” Graham replies with a smile. It’s always disconcerting to see her smile. “Just so you know that if your fucking around loses me my cut, I’ll be taking it out of your ass.”

Eames positively beams at this. Arthur finds himself looking out his window without really seeing, just waiting for Eames to escalate the situation. The man lives life on the crumbling edge of his luck, as if it’s the only ground he finds comfortable to walk. Arthur knows because Arthur can relate. He knows the territory Eames lives on well enough; fun to visit, not so fun to call home. Anyway, Arthur couldn't obtain residency there if he wanted to. He knows too well when to keep his mouth shut.

“Promises promises.” Eames meets her gaze, smile never wavering, then chuckles and leans back into his seat. Arthur rolls his eyes. Yup. There it is.

“Oh, you can relax,” Eames goes on. “I’m properly terrified, I assure you.”

“Hmmm.”

Graham doesn’t look convinced, but turns around regardless, dismissing Eames skillfully.

They continue on their way out of the city in silence. Meeting the money is not Arthur’s favorite part of the job. He’s honestly grateful to pass off the obligatory conversation onto Eames. Eames is good at the talking. Probably too good, but what can you do?

Soon enough, they’re rolling past Mr. Durant’s guarded gate and down a driveway dripping on either side with greenery. It’s an oasis in the desert—the yard vast and deeply shadowed—all in service to the mansion at the property’s center.

“What a pretty confection,” Eames says, leaning into the window for a proper look up at it. “The man really has no taste at all, does he?”

Peacocks greet them upon exiting the vehicle and the silent valet gently spooks the birds off before whisking their unsightly rental out of view.

“Impressive architecture,” Eames says, eyes to the ornate crown molding, as their client makes his way into the massive gold-leafed library where they’ve been deposited to wait. The old man’s gait is so careful he seems to hover over the hardwood. They wait a little longer for him to get to an overstuffed chair.

“Refreshing to see a man with both wealth and taste.”

Asshole.

The old man sits hard in the chair, which all but swallows him, his wheezing laughter knocked silent at the landing. He slowly crosses a leg and gestures for them to sit.

“You know, Eames, I’d object to the amount of smoke you blow up my ass if I wasn’t so damned old and eager for compliment.”

“Not at all, Charles,” Eames says with a wink, mirroring the man’s posture. Arthur wonders if it’s even conscious.

Eames sits up a bit straighter, though, after the warm greeting has passed. He knocks his knuckle against his chin. Once. Twice. “She’s your daughter, then? The mark?” His face is all business.

Arthur snaps his head around to look at Eames. Finds the rest of the team doing the same, Graham’s face a threat in itself, Amira’s jaw slack and eyes wide. They’d discussed it—the possibility of it. Of course Eames would just come out and say it.

Mr. Durant’s eyes, when Arthur looks, are steady and assessing. After a moment they crinkle at the corners like crepe. He smiles, a bit sharp, but also amused.

“Clearly worth every penny of the small fortune I’ve promised you.”

And Eames is twice the asshole for getting away with it.

Eames drops his leg to sit forward; rests his chin on steepled hands. “I do need...certain information, you understand, if I’m to pull this enterprise off.”

The man looks to be debating whether to take offense or not, mouth open to condemn but the actual words held in check. When he does speak next, face decided, his words are soft; his eyes distant.

“She doesn’t know, of course.” Mr. Durant gestures vaguely. “She loved the man that acted as her father dearly—Julien, the artist, you know—and I can hardly deprive her of that—of his memory...seeing as—as I loved him also.” He sighs, eyes closing for a moment. “ _And_ as she served faithfully, if unwittingly, as my only connection to Julien once I’d lost him to her repugnant _mother_.” A pause, a smirk. “Quite the sordid affair, really, when you lay it all out, hmm?” He shakes his head, eyes distant, then wipes the smirk away. “Quite. Does that satisfy your need for information, sir?”

Eames nods deeply. “It does. Thank you, Charles.” Eames relaxes back into his chair, though his eyes are sharp. “Is your relationship to the father off the table as well, then? She’s not to know?”

He sounds wistful, but it might only be that Arthur’s reading into the tone; listening too closely. Sounds like Eames is already mourning the bit of leverage lost. Of course it’s off the table.

Silence falls. And that silence is allowed to fill the room, buzzing and uncomfortable while the man sits lost in memory. After what seems like an eternity, he comes to himself. Looks up at Eames, eyes maybe the slightest bit too shiny, but having lost none of his dignity. He nods and Eames breathes one long slow breath out—not a sigh, not at all—and nods in return.

“It’s to spare her, you know, that I’m willing to gamble on this inception scheme of yours. Of course, you must know as much. I’m sure it was this same overfondness that tipped my hand as to her parentage. Nevertheless, I will have that painting off her. I will have that much before I die.” He nods decisively then looks them each in the eye in turn. “Spare her pain, if you can, but bring me the location of the painting, regardless. Am I understood?”

The old man’s eyes rest on Arthur. Arthur does understand. Completely. He nods. Clears his throat to respond.

“You have my word.”

“Yes, but you’re a thief,” Eames says, gesturing broadly. “What good is your word, really, when all's said and done?”

Eames leans back in his sunlounger and looks to Arthur, waiting for an answer, tinted glasses tipped down and piercing eyes hitting Arthur full strength. They wander, however, soon enough, tracking an attractive, smiling, bikini-clad brunette with a tan so deep you could drown in it. Arthur pulls his own gaze away from her swinging rear long enough to try for an answer—and to shove Eames for the smug expression he wears, nearly knocking the man from his chair but only gaining Arthur a round of laughter in the end. Eames scoops up an icy drink and sips, unperturbed and waiting still for that answer. Fine. Arthur smiles, pulling out a lie.

“My word is at least as good as the money.”

“ _Bollocks_ ,” Eames says, “You don’t do this for the _money_. You do it for the _challenge_.”

He swings up to sitting, facing Arthur. Sets his drink aside.

“You do it, because as cool and collected as you like to appear, Arthur, as reliable, you live for the chance to push your luck.” He taps two fingers off of Arthur’s resting forearm. “That’s why you and I get on so well. You need to feel it, same as me.”

“Feel what?” Arthur watches Eames closely. Watches the man trail those fingers in a light line up his forearm.

Eames’ face is that serious, contemplative thing Arthur had once got a glimpse of in the diner.

“The edge of the knife underfoot.”

And when the eyes meet his—those fierce eyes, so strange and yet so fitting—Arthur’s entire body raises in goosebumps. Because Eames is right. He’s right. And with those fingers trailing back down Arthur’s forearm, soothing the skin there, Arthur can admit it. Just not out loud.

“Alright,” Eames says, smiling again and patting Arthur’s thigh. “You’ve seen mine. Time to show me yours.” His palm rises from Arthur’s thigh and he points emphatically. “Best hold to your word now, Arthur. You wouldn’t want me to think less of you.”

Arthur huffs a dark laugh and preps the PASIV to go one level deeper, into his own dream. He leans back afterwards and watches Eames’ slip a needle deftly into the arm he holds bared. Eames kisses Arthur after, and it tastes like the memory of coconut. No real substance and all fabrication. Eames’ tropical drink. A dream of a coconut.

Arthur hates coconut.

“Pleasant dreams, love.” Eames fingers trail back up that arm and give Arthur goosebumps despite the muggy tropical air.

Asshole.

“Not likely, _darling_.”

“Wow. He’s really starting to rub off on you, isn’t he?”

Amira leans dangerously back in her computer chair and spins to look his way.

“Is it love?” 

She smiles, teasingly.

Arthur’s nursing a black eye and busted lip from last night. He wishes he was nursing a hangover, too. Wishes like hell he had an excuse for his current state. Any excuse.

_Is it love?_

He has to look away from her teasing grin. Has to swallow down the bile. Repositions his ice pack to cover his avoidance. Poorly. Confusion shifts her brow and she opens her mouth to say something—he can see it happening from the corner of his eye—but she shuts her mouth just as quickly. She turns back to her computer screen and pretends not to have seen a thing. See, this is why Arthur chose to work with the girl. This is why he likes her so much. She knows when to give it a rest. When enough is enough. Unlike some.

Unlike him.

He leans back dangerously in his own chair and spins the pen in his hand. The paper before him remains blank.

“Vodka soda.”

Arthur nods to the girl leaning her cleavage onto the bar in an attempt to chum the waters and attract a bartender. At Arthur’s gesture, Eames swings his attention her way without bothering to finish his sentence. He studies her for a moment and then he smiles.

“What do you want to bet?”

The call to wager. The usual line. And Arthur is prepared. He spends his free time coming up with suitably interesting wagers these days—increasingly escalating wagers as they constantly push to one-up one another. Their bets are only growing in frequency and scope. There’s nowhere to go but bigger. But up.

What the wager is on doesn’t really matter—merely a means to an end and they both know it—it’s the wager that’s the thing. It’s the win or lose; paying the price or beating the odds; the dance on the knife’s edge of their luck. That’s what matters. 

Arthur smiles, leaning across the table. “A bar fight,” he says—chuckles at Eames’ obviously peaked interest. “I lose and I’ll start one. Here. Right now.”

Eames scans the crowd. Rich and young and all there with simple goals. Get drunk. Get laid. Get up in the morning without too much of a hangover. Bunch of work-hard-play-hard yuppies. Probably half of them have never been in a fight in their lives, let alone participated in a bar brawl.

But that’s what makes it fun, right?

“That’ll be a sight.” Eames nods, turning back with a grin. “You’re on, love. Vodka soda or the night’s entertainment is on you.” 

The bartender makes his way toward the busty blonde. They both watch, lions stalking prey, as she places her order. Then Eames throws a wink Arthur’s way and rises from his seat, sliding up beside the girl at the bar like he belongs there. She laughs at Eames and touches his arm and Arthur doesn’t know whether to laugh or clench his jaw. Eames flags down the bartender more effectively than even the blonde's cleavage had managed, by some magic, and places an order himself, chatting away amiably with the girl all the while. He turns while conversing, leaning his elbows naturally back onto the bar, as if to scan the crowd, except his eyes never stray once from Arthur. His smile speaks of secrets—of the joke shared between them.

Soon enough, but not soon enough, Eames is waving to the chatty girl and walking back to the table, drink in hand. Arthur sees the dark drink the girl is now sipping. Knows he’s lost. Doesn’t need Eames’ smug smile to tell him that.

“Rum and coke,” Eames says anyway, sliding a double shot of some brown liquor Arthur hopes is whiskey across the table and within reach. “I could have told you as much, Arthur—well look at her.”

Arthur doesn’t, can feel Eames watching him, silently amused as he always is by Arthur’s aggravation.

“Quick now, drink your courage, love.” He motions Arthur to hurry along. “I believe I’m owed a show.”

Vodka fucking soda.

Arthur stares balefully at the back of Amira’s head, tonguing at the cut cleaving his lip. He can still feel the burn of Eames’ lips against it. Taste the blood forced into his mouth by the kiss, by Eames’ tongue. Feel Eames’ lips brushing over every bruise on Arthur’s body; gentle with Arthur—gentle together that night in their room, their bed, like they’d never been before. Unhurried. Content. He can still feel it all as if his nerves had recorded the memory, his skin, and not just his mind. He can recall it as if it’s happening again, right here and now. He has to stop recalling it.

_Is it love?_

Eames emerges from the stairwell and scans the room. Even from this distance it’s impossible not to realize Eames is scanning the room for him. Those eyes brighten when they touch upon his. Those lips—soft and unyielding at once against his as they had been last night and are again now, in perfect memory, pressing their advantage and moving Arthur’s to respond—those lips spread wide now, in an open smile at the sight of him.

_Is it love?_

Arthur smiles back, but only weakly. He feels sick. 

_Is it love?_

He hopes not. He fucking hopes not.

For his sake—their sakes—he hopes not.

“Morning,” Eames smiles, lowering himself into a chair and spinning Arthur’s way. “That shade of blue looks lovely on you, Arthur.”

Eames could be talking about Arthur's shirt. He isn’t, Arthur knows, but he could be.

“Fuck off.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” Eames says, as if he’s speaking logically. “We die?”

Arthur stares down the steep mountain slope, picturing all the things that could go wrong and trying to rank them for worst.

“The lodge is at the bottom, Arthur.” Eames gestures vaguely downward. “Fire. Wine. Me, naked and laid out on a bearskin rug. Just think of it. All yours if we can only _get_ there.”

“Of course,” Arthur says on the heels of a sarcastic chuckle. “Of course you would dream this.”

Eames laughs in his turn and slides over next to Arthur, digging his poles in fiercely and raising his goggles. His voice is softer when next he speaks.

“Share this with me. We’ll have weeks in the warm dry safety of the cabin, that I promise. Just be _here_ with me for this, now, won't you?”

“Weeks,” Arthur says, “if we don’t die.”

But he smiles afterward and lowers his own goggles, shaking his head.

“This is a terrible idea, Mr. Eames.”

“This,” Eames says, preparing himself again, “Will be fun, Darling. Here we go.”

And at that, Eames disappears with a mad cackle. 

Arthur sighs; pushes off to follow down the near-vertical slope of the mountain.

When he’s jolted painfully awake, the first thing he does is push Eames from the bed. A low groan from the floor tells him he’s given the bastard a successful kick.

“Fun,” Arthur says. He can still feel his ribs being crushed by the massive chunk of ice that had knocked him deep into the powder and pinned him as the avalanche rolled over. “Next two dreams are mine, second level—next three.” He rubs his chest.

Eames rises, somehow graceful, from the floor beside the bed, the blanket he’d been tangled in draped casually over one arm.

“You assured me that you could ski,” Eames argues. “So who’s really to blame here, hmm?” He tosses the blanket aside and crawls into bed, unhooking the PASIV from his arm smoothly and without thought. 

Arthur takes care of his own connection. Feels the bed dip as Eames rolls up beside him, propped on his side. Eames’ hand falls to rest, light and warm, across Arthur’s still-sore ribs. Under that now-familiar warmth, the phantom pain subsides a bit and Arthur’s anger subsides a bit with it.

The hand trails up Arthur’s chest to his cheek and a light coaxing brings Arthur’s face around to face Eames. A large soft thumb brushes, barely there, over Arthur’s lips.

“You love me,” Eames says in a voice just as soft; barely there. It’s not teasing. There’s nothing teasing about it.

Eames’ face is that grave, thoughtful thing it can sometimes become. Arthur feels the same familiar ache in his chest, his gut, that he always feels when seeing it—seeing past the show.

“Yeah? What do you want to bet?” Arthur breathes, with a grin, like Eames _had_ been teasing. His voice shakes with the effort of the pretense. 

Eames studies Arthur’s face, tracing it with one warm finger in the thick silence. He kisses Arthur once, then pulls away.

“My life,” Eames says, nodding once after. The words are all but whispered. They’re also stated so matter-of-fact-ly that they hit with the force of a bullet—that is to say, Arthur doesn’t know he’s been hit till his brain can catch up to the damage. 

He lays there, listening to the pace of his quickened, ragged breathing. He swallows down the fucking cowardice that drowns him and grabs up Eames’ hand in his. He’s still staring up at the ceiling, not really seeing it or seeing anything except the inside of his own skull and the freeway traffic of his thoughts speeding by. He can’t face the man yet. Not when he doesn’t—

He lets the gathered hand fall back to the bed. Turns, dry-eyed, to look Eames in the eye—to lie more believably.

“You lose.”

The words are protection. A last defense. A last resort. He says them as convincingly as he can in the hope that he’ll finally believe them himself. Eames is silent after; staring—Arthur can always feel when he’s staring.

But Arthur needs to stop this—whatever this game, this contest has become between them. It’s dangerous. Reckless. Escalating. And he loses himself in it—can’t seem to stop himself being pulled along by it. Stop himself liking it. Craving it. Eames is bad for him. They’re not _good_ for each other. And Arthur needs it all to stop. He needs to stop it.

“Do I?” Eames finally breathes, wounded, thoughtful. 

And now Arthur looks away, the better to lie. Keeps his jaw clamped tight shut on a retraction. A confession. _No. You win. You win, okay? But if this keeps up, the way it’s going, we’re both gonna lose, I can feel it—can’t you feel it? And I’m trying to be the responsible one here, alright? So just...please,_ **_please_** _, stop making that so fucking hard, will you?_

“You’d be willing to provide proof, then?” Eames asks.

Arthur looks to Eames, trying to get a read. Another reflex. Has to swallow down the vomit of words: apologies, appeals, adoration, has to—

“Proof?”

“Yes, Arthur. For a wager as dear as my life, I’m going to need a bit of proof.”

“Funny,” Arthur says, then has to look harder, suddenly angry. “Oh come on, you’re not serious?”

Eames stares. Silent. Waiting. And Arthur can’t let the silently unfurling panic show on his face. He can’t look at this patient focused stare and believe Eames is just being flippant with words like he always is. He can’t look at this face at all. Can’t give in now, either—has to look.

He can actually feel his luck shrinking underfoot. Wrong move. Played the wrong card. But the game is still in play, regardless. The game will have to continue.

“And how the hell would I prove something like that?”

Eames sits up, turns away, begins to pull on his pants. Arthur’s willing to bet that his expression doesn’t change through the whole ordeal. Shirt and all its buttons. Cuffs and jacket neat. Shoes and phone and what dignity Arthur has left him, all squared away and walking, under his own power, toward the door. 

Before Eames’ hand can work the handle, he turns, just enough. Speaks, just loudly enough. Arthur strains to listen, fist clenched in the bedsheets, hidden by the comforter.

“How, indeed.”

The door opens. The door closes. The room is changed once it does.

“Fuck.”

He lets his fist go loose. Lets it drop to his side. Forgotten how to be alone, that’s the problem—that’s the difference. Happened quick, too. In such a stupidly short time, he’d lost the trick of it—the trick of turning lonely into free. 

There’s something inside him, some little vital thing inside him, that he’d taken a lot of pains over a lot of years to numb—turn off—in order to get the trick to work. Now all that work is undone. By Eames. By Eames insinuating himself into Arthur’s life like he was on a job—like he was being paid to do it. Undone by Arthur allowing Eames to get so close; seeing it happen—feeling it happen—and allowing it. And now, the green felt of the craps table he’s standing here watching out of habit doesn’t look the same as it once did, with that little part awake and aware inside of him like it is. The flash of colorful chips holds a kind of horror in it now. The blood red dice seem diabolical, tumbling as they are, and tumbling and tumbling and—

“Arthur. Don’t you look a pretty picture standing here—in your element, as it were.” 

Eames, behind him. Right behind him as if he’d simply appeared there and not approached through the crowd. Arthur lets the loosely-gripped die he’d been holding, feeling himself on the brink of intuition, fall back to the bottom of his pocket in his distraction. He doesn’t turn; not even when Eames speaks again. Not even to throw a jab at Eames for saying something as trite as “feeling nostalgic?” to him now, at a time like this.

Arthur _is_ feeling nostalgic. Feels Eames lean in, and though no part of Eames touches him, Arthur can feel the length of the man’s body pressing—the warmth of it there at his back. That little vital thing inside him is alive alright; alive and awake and happy about the situation he’s in right now. The position he’s in. And Arthur wishes he’d killed it when he had the chance.

“You looked the same the night we met. The very same tidy suit and tidy hair and tidy expression.” And now Eames does touch Arthur—one hand slid under Arthur’s jacket and resting at the hip, much too close to the pocket there. Distracting. “Little wonder I was bewitched.”

And now breath fogs hot against Arthur’s ear. And all down Arthur’s back the line of Eames’ body, which had been an implication only a moment ago, becomes explicit.

“What would something so tidy look like, I wondered,” Eames whispers, his thumb caressing Arthur's side and conveniently untucking his shirt in the process. “Something so neat, coming undone for me?”

Arthur turns before his body has the chance of betraying him in public. Shoves Eames away as inconspicuously as possible and feels his hand connect with something hard hidden in Eames’ mildly-trashy suit jacket. Something that slips to falling and that Eames fumbles quickly to collect and obscure again.

“There there, Arthur,” He says, backing a bit further off. “Let’s not give the game away just yet.”

The jacket is pulled back for a moment in what Arthur can only describe as a dramatic reveal, and when Arthur gets a look he finds himself huffing out a silent chuckle and meeting Eames’ eyes.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Eames….”

“Yes, Arthur?”

Arthur’s muscles are taut, almost forcing him to standing despite the haze of alcohol his brain is swimming in. The liquor bottle—gin this time—that Eames had tempted Arthur to the roof with is probably more than half empty now—Arthur might be able to tell if the light from the city below could reach them better all the way up here. Or if Eames would only hold the bottle still for a second. If Eames would just get away from the damned edge and stop the high-wire act already, then it wouldn’t matter how empty that bottle is. He watches Eames make a less-than-graceful about-face and stops himself bolting upright again.

“ _Eames_.”

Eames at least stops walking at the tone, though the way that he turns to face Arthur, wobbles backwards over nothing, and nearly drops the gin trying to correct his balance, isn’t all that comforting, really. Arthur forces his muscles to loosen yet again. 

Eames, for his part, merely stands there, apparently waiting for Arthur to elaborate; his expression—from what Arthur can see—is all curious patience.

Arthur wishes he knew what the hell to say. He doesn’t have words to shape his thoughts. Doesn’t have the right words, at least. And his throat is so full of the wrong ones, it’s probably safer to just keep his mouth shut. Keep quiet.

“Get away from the edge.”

“What was that?” Eames says, lifting a hand to cup his ear. “Didn’t catch it.”

Arthur had spoken plenty loud. He shuts his eyes and presses the pads of his thumb and forefinger into his eyelids, massaging out the tension. He’d spoken plenty loud enough.

He says “come here,” and it comes out even quieter this time, mostly out of spite. He knows this game and doesn’t feel like playing right now. He’s drunk, for one thing, and tired for another. They’d talked of nothing but bullshit all night as they’d passed the bottle between them. And the constant forcing of that bullshit out of his throat, so tight with unspoken truths, was draining—has drained him down to empty. He’s empty and weary and the cold of the desert night is biting at him through his thin cotton button down. He doesn’t remember where he put his jacket. He shivers and is thankful for the distance and the dark that means Eames can’t see his moment of weakness.

“Still couldn’t quite get that, Arthur,” Eames says, still playing and not even hiding the grin. “So sorry. Once more?”

Fine. Arthur rises unsteadily to his feet. Fine, he’ll play. Actions speak louder than words anyway, right? Anything to be done with the bullshit. Either get to something real or get back to his warm room and away from Eames.

He stalks to the edge of the roof, swipes the bottle of gin from Eames’ grip, takes a swig and—mid-swig—still manages to catch Eames’ wrist the next time he wobbles dangerously. The skin is hot and damp under his palm, even in the cold. He holds it, knowing he shouldn’t. He pulls it gently his way, directing Eames to step forward.

“Just what the hell are you trying to prove, anyway?” Arthur asks. He doesn’t know how to work his way into it. Dancing around a point is Eames’ specialty, not his.

The arm extends fully and stops. Eames won’t be led. The man’s free hand scoops the gin back and brings it to his lips, a trickle of the liquor forging a sloppy stream down his chin as he drinks. He wipes this away with his jacket sleeve, bottle still gripped tight.

“You love me, Arthur.” It’s whispered like a secret—like a poison dart hissing through the air between them, sent to stun Arthur.

“You’re drunk.” Arthur reclaims the bottle, a bit surprised when Eames gives it up so easily. He doesn’t take a drink, though. Can’t quite escape Eames' eyes. Can’t do much in this state but try and keep the guilt from showing too much on his face.

Eames stares for a while, unblinking. Maybe it’s meant to be unnerving. Maybe it fucking is. Then Eames chuckles and turns his face away. 

“Fair enough,” Eames says, nodding, and Arthur almost misses the moment that Eames rips his hand out of Arthur’s loose grip, swaying too far backwards with the effort.

Almost. He has to drop the gin to catch Eames by that ridiculous jacket—hauls Eames to standing with shaking hands, his breath rushing ragged time to match the beat of his furiously drumming heart.

“Ah.” Eames says. “There. There it is. You love me.” 

Eames' pointed finger punctuates his accusation. His raised voice echoes off the surrounding buildings. Arthur loosens his fingers from the fabric of the jacket and tries not to form them into fists again once they’re free.

“Are you insane?” Arthur doesn’t dare take a step back. Doesn’t dare look up into that face. He watches his hand. Keeps his fingers from curling in on themselves. “You could have—”

“ _You_ could have easily let me fall.”

“And what?” Arthur does look Eames in the eye now, defiant. “What? I save you so that means I’m in love? Because I didn’t want you to die? Are you fucking hearing yourself?”

“It wasn’t the _act_ ,” Eames says, waving the notion off. “No, it was the emotion behind the act that proves it. You may be able to tell me lies when it’s easy, when you’re prepared, but I saw the truth on your face just now, in that moment of doubt before your fingers got a good grip. And you can try to deny it—hell, you can lie to yourself if you like, love, but now that _I’ve_ seen, I’ll ask you never lie to _me_ on that point again. You love me.”

Arthur’s eyes had been forced away by the intensity of that stare. Now Eames gathers Arthur’s attention back with a gentle deft hand. His legs no longer wobble beneath him, though his heels are closer to the edge than ever. Eames had never been drunk, Arthur realizes. He’d been playing. Still playing Arthur. And Arthur knows Eames, knows that everything, to some extent, is a game to him; but this— He’s been playing Arthur this whole time, of course, but _this time_ —

_Shut up. You like it. Even now. Stop lying to yourself._

“Have I made myself perfectly clear?” Eames asks, an obvious threat under the gentle tone.

Though Arthur’s face is held firm in Eames’ direction, he keeps his eyes averted. He can’t give in. Not even now. Especially not now. Not here on this fucking roof. Not like this.

“You love me,” Eames says, and Arthur tries to shake his head.

“You,” Eames says, more softly, more forcefully, “love me, Arthur. You love me. This will be much easier for you if you’ll only admit it.”

Unable to shake his head, Arthur does the only thing left to him. He keeps his mouth shut. Stands silent. Wonders if they’ll be here to greet the dawn—how late is it?

Eames sighs. “Fine,” he says, releasing his grip on Arthur. “You win.”

He steps backward into freefall. Before Arthur can even move to catch him, Eames is out of reach. Arthur’s fingers brush the horrible jacket he’d caught only a minute ago. A moment. It’d only been a moment....

His eyes are closed on the sight of Eames’ jacket slipping away. The image won’t leave. The image is enough—the fall—he doesn’t want to see the messy stop. Can’t stop himself hearing it though. It’s the sound that—

THWUMP. 

It’s the sound that wakes him. Wakes him to another sound—a gasp as Eames wakes forcefully beside him.

THWUMP.

Dying will do that. Real wake-up call. Haha. 

He doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he opens his eyes. He feels the bed shifting beside him. Feels the needle slipping from his arm.

THWUMP.

Feels Eames about to speak. Feels the weight of forthcoming words in the air like the hot wet pressure before a storm—can’t allow it.

“Fuck you.” Arthur swallows, throat dry, lungs burning, head shaking. “No. No, don’t you fucking speak to me.”

He breathes. Tries to catch his breath. He tries to speak again and can barely do it. Barely, but he manages. He’s good like that. Always pushes through. Always—

“I love you,” he mutters with a numb tongue. Saying the words feels like losing. “I fucking love you. There.” His voice breaks. “Are you happy? I—”

THWUMP.

“Now just...get out. Just get out of here so I can open— So I can stop—”

THWUMP.

“Please.”

The bed shifts. The space beside Arthur grows empty and cold and that’s good, that’s fine, and now if Arthur can just—

THWUMP.

He covers his face with a shaking hand. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“Shhhh,” he hears. Feels the bed dip at his other side. Didn’t know he was talking out loud but feels his teeth click together as his mouth closes so he must have— He swallows down the thin hurt sound that tries to escape that closed mouth anyway. “Shhh, Arthur, shhhh. It was only a dream. I’m right here. You were only dreaming.”

THWUMP.

He feels his die pressed into his hand. Feels the warm solid living whole palm that presses it there and grips onto both hard enough to hurt. He hopes it hurts.

THWUMP.

“Fuck you, I— You— I—”

THWUMP.

Stop stop stop stop stop. He feels his hands pulled away from his ears and can’t remember putting them there. He opens his eyes; finds his fingers already curled into a fist and swings out fast and hard and sharp and hears a CRACK that reverberates through the room and his skull and overwrites the memory of that sound, that sound of the stop after the fall. That fucking sound. He looks over his knuckles afterwards. Looks up to assess Eames’ face and then finds himself laughing at the expression he finds there. Doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stop laughing till he actually manages to do it. 

Eames leanes in, a smile forming and Arthur stops him advancing with the fist he hasn’t been able to unclench yet. He rests it there, on Eames’ chest, touching Eames, not striking Eames. Feels that fist loosen a fraction at the warmth of Eames, alive.

“I fucking hate you.” He shakes his head. “You’re crazy. I hate you. I can’t believe—”

He can’t believe he hadn’t recognized it as a dream. He must have seen. The evidence must have been everywhere in the casino but he hadn’t—

He looks till he finds his die in the bedsheets and grips it, thinking back.

“You know, don’t you?” He holds up his die, watching Eames’ face carefully. “You know why I’ve been using this. You know what it does when I’m dreaming—what all the dice do when I’m dreaming.”

“And I’m properly flattered, I assure you.”

“Oh, screw you.” Arthur gets up. “You stopped it happening so I wouldn’t know—fuck if I know how you did but— What’s to stop you doing that any time? Huh?”

“You _could_ simply trust me not to.”

Arthur scoffs at that. Stands and turns to go. He gets one step before he’s stopped—a steel grip on his wrist halting him.

“Let me go.” He doesn’t speak loudly. The threat is clear enough.

“No.” Eames looks around him, seems to find what he’s searching for and strides toward it, dragging Arthur along. He stops and rifles through his jacket—that same jacket that—

“You," Eames says, "have your loaded die and I," his loose fist comes up into Arthur's line of sight, "have this.” He opens his fingers to reveal a dull red casino chip. “And when I dream, every chip is a replica of this chip. That’s how I know that I’m dreaming. Look at it, Arthur.”

It’s the chip Arthur had tossed at Eames at the end of their first meeting—done it as a joke. _Don’t spend it all in one place, kid_.

“There. I know your secret and now you know mine." He drops the chip. "Even, I’d say, wouldn't you?”

“Even?” Arthur says, glaring, not able to believe the sheer gall of the man. “Fuck you, how about that? Fucking even—you need to get out. Now!”

“Not just yet!”

Arthur’s pulled in by Eames, hard enough that he can’t stop himself going, fast enough that it stops him protesting, controlled enough that he’s caught up and pulled close without colliding with any real force. And there’s strength in that. In even that. And Arthur hates the grudging admiration in the thought as soon as he has it. 

“I _have_ loved you, you know,” Eames says, the words almost desperate; the words, the tone, stop Arthur from pulling his way out of Eames’ grip more effectively than the grip itself has hope of doing. “For quite some time, I have. You’re not alone in that.” 

A soft palm rests itself at the back of Arthur’s neck, no longer holding him. There’s no longer any need. Those words knocked any fight Arthur had left clean out of him. The warmth of Eames’ body holds him in place. A pressed kiss to his temple renders him immobile. The touch, the kiss—both softer than Arthur needs—than he’s ever allowed, stop the protests he should make from forming. They create an ache in him that’s almost painful. 

“I saw you that night, standing there, watching that table,” Eames goes on, “and I couldn’t help but love you. And I _do_ realise what a burden that is, Arthur, and I _am_ sorry. You may not believe me but I _did_ try _not_ to love you. Once I realized what would—”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, mostly to stop Eames Babbling. “Probably gonna kill us though, you know,” he adds, soft, maybe resigned. “This—whatever this is. In the end.” 

Resignation. Yeah. That’s what it is, Arthur’s almost sure. And how has it come to that? 

Eames chuckles darkly.

“But what a way to go, hmm?” He releases Arthur and pushes back enough to look him in the eye. “Poetic, almost.” He searches Arthur’s face. “Want to stop?”

And Arthur smiles. Maybe he is resigned.

“Kind of burned that bridge already, don’t you think?” It’s a rhetorical question and Arthur’s relieved when Eames respects that. “I just,” he adds, “don’t want it to spill over. Hurt anyone else, you know?”

“What, are you proposing we try to control this?” And Eames laughs in earnest now. “Oh, I do love your confidence, Arthur. Does this feel like a controlled descent to you?”

There’s a feeling in Arthur’s stomach, near-constant lately, that’s a little like the bottom dropping out. Like the swoop of freefall. And he can’t quite manage a lie. And yet…. And yet he can’t just leave it at that.

“No one else gets hurt.” It’s an order—for himself as much as for Eames. He won’t take anyone down with him in this.

Eames smiles, pats Arthur’s shoulder, and walks past him. At the bathroom door, he turns.

“Care to place a wager on that?”

Heart lifting and providing a sickening counterpart to his unsteady stomach, he lets out a chuckle he doesn’t even know why he tried holding back. He pinches the bridge of his nose at a blossoming headache. Then he looks up, shaking his head.

“You have to ask?”

“At least once more, Arthur.” Eames watches him closely. “You want to change the plan even further? The plan we’ll be putting into motion in around….” he glances at his watch. “Sixteen hours? You really think that’s wise?”

Arthur doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at Eames. Swallows down the burning lump of self-hate at knowing he wants to look. Knowing he still—

He looks to Graham only to find her eyes already on him; assessing him.

“I don’t like it,” she says coolly, fingers drumming on the desktop, leaned casually back in her chair. She looks calm. Sure. Arthur’s been with her long enough, though, to see it for the lie it is. Her fingers stop drumming. “I don’t like the change,” she goes on, “or the timing, or the fact that you’re lying directly to my face right now while Amira’s lying—” She looks away from Arthur in a way that loses her no ground. “Most of all, I hate the guilty-ass look on your face right now.” And her face shows the subtlest hint of disgust at having to look at him. “So no, I don’t like it. But we’ll do it anyway, because putting this job behind me as soon as possible puts you two in my rear view too, and right now that’s what I’d like most in this world.”

He nods. There’s nothing to be said. He deserves every ounce of her venom. More.

He’d fucked up.

He sees Amira’s smile. Sees her, eyes rolling with annoyance at something he’d said. Hears the jingle of her bracelets at her constant hair shifting. Sees her head nodding to some unheard rythm, her pencil scratching over paper as she builds—on fire with the kind of creation he could never even imagine.

He can’t stop seeing her eyes, the way they’d looked when—

He’d fucked up. He’d _fucked up_.

“Tomorrow, then.” He swallows, clears his throat, but there’s nothing more to say. He nods again then leaves, throwing Eames a look that fucking dares him to follow.

Tomorrow.

His new hotel room door is cool at his back; the room cool and dark and dry and ticking before him. Alien. He hears a cart creak past in the hall; slides to the floor. The distance to his bed is impossibly far.

“You never set the terms,” Eames says, grinning winningly. “Then you went and lost. It’s only fair I name my prize.” Eames looks equal parts amused and exasperated with Arthur. “And I’m asking such a small thing, Arthur, really.”

“What did you lose now?” Amira says, depositing the latest round of drinks on the table. She plops down at her seat and props her chin up with her fists, leaning in eagerly to listen.

“It’s nothing,” Arthur tells her. “A stupid bet.”

“And now he has to pay the piper, my dear lady.” Eames winks at Amira and scoops up his drink, looking back to Arthur. “What? It’s your own fault, you know. You can’t regale me with all those stories of your misspent youth and then expect me not to want to see you in action.”

And Amira is smiling around her straw now. She swallows and sits straighter. “Well this promises to be interesting. In action doing what, Arthur?”

Eames chuckles at Arthur’s silence.

“Oh, our Arthur had quite the childhood career as a pickpocket,” Eames tells Amira, throwing a grin at Arthur’s resulting scowl.

Amira cocks her head to the side, studying Arthur. “You?” She grins and shakes her head. “No, it’s impossible, I can’t picture it. Look at you.” She waves a hand in gesture, taking him in.

Arthur sighs and knocks back his whiskey.

“Finish your drink,” He says, pointing to Amira then setting the glass down audibly. “And I’ll show you.” He turns to Eames and holds up a firm finger. “Once.”

“Fair enough.” Eames swirls the ice in his already-finished drink. Sets it on the table with finality. “Let’s have a change of venue, then.” He rises and with waggling brow swings on his jacket. “You can entertain us on the way.”

Amira knocks through the door of their third club of the night, laughing so hard that she’s gone silent with lack of breath. The street is still lively and the night air is refreshing after the press inside.

“I can’t believe,” she says, before dissolving into silent laughter again. She bends double in the cool night then rights herself, sucking in a deep breath. “I can’t believe I got to see you dance, Arthur. And you’re good, too! That’s—” Laughter once more. “That’s the hell of it. You’re better than me! Eames, pinch me, this has to be a dream. No.” And she shakes her head, arms outstretched and palms warding off the thought. “This is too strange for a dream.”

Arthur’s drunk enough to be content in the moment, even being laughed at, while not being so drunk that he doesn’t sense embarrassment to come once he’s sobered up. He doesn’t dwell on that feeling like he usually would—feels more alive than he’s ever remembered feeling. He feels amazing. For once in his life, he goes with it; gives Amira a chivalrous bow, grabbing up her hand and planting a kiss on the silky skin of its back. She shivers.

“If a lady asks to dance, who am I to say no?” he says, rising, moving in a bit closer and communicating silently with Eames over her shoulder.

Eames hangs his shrugged-off jacket around Amira’s shoulders and steps in himself enough to speak low into her ear. “Any gentleman would do the same.”

Arthur smiles and pulls his closed hand from his pocket, letting a glittering pendant fall free to dangle by a delicate chain.

“Swiped it for you,” he says softly. “May I?” 

He unclasps the chain and holds the necklace out toward her.

“For me?” Her voice is high. She swallows and Arthur tracks the movement of her throat, watches as she takes a deep heaving breath that draws his attention to her breasts. She’s blushing. It’s beautiful. “Sure,” she says, voice fighting a tremble. She clears her throat. “Yes. Alright.” 

Arthur's eyes snap back up to hers, making one small detour to Eames’ on the way.

Eames pulls her hair back for Arthur to place the necklace and clasp it. And Arthur’s close. He holds Amira’s eye. Once he clasps the delicate fastening, he doesn’t back off an inch.

“Pretty on you,” he says, finger ghosting over the pendant. The silver shines against her bronze skin and it’s more than pretty.

He looks up to see her eyes on his lips. Smiles.

“Gonna kiss you now,” he whispers. 

And before she can voice a reply, he has, once, lightly. Barely there. He pulls back and waits a beat and her hands are pulling him back in quick enough, twined in his hair and mussing it. His hand finds Eames’ shoulder behind her; feels Eames’ hand resting gently on his wrist and wrapping it.

When he pulls away he holds her eyes, gauging the moment, then turns his gaze on Eames. He’d lost. _This_ is what Eames had asked in payment of the bet, not petty thievery but a seduction, and now that they’re here, drunk and alive with the frenzied city around them, Arthur can’t remember why he’d been hesitant to give Eames his way. He holds those intense eyes. Finds Eames lips over Amira’s shoulder and satisfies himself there enough to get him by for the moment, enough to let him back away and release Amira from between them with a reluctant step taken backwards. He looks back down into her eyes, dark and wide and beautiful.

“What do you say,” Eames says, hands on her shoulders and fingers massaging loose circles there, “we all head back to Arthur’s room. Hmm?”

Her head falls back into Eames chest but her eyes remain to study Arthur.

“This is cheating, you know,” she says, smiling contently. “The both of you using your charms on me like this.”

“Ah,” Eames says, his fingers ghosting over her collarbone. “But.” His lips brush up the column of her neck and then back down. “There are no rules in this game, lovely. Impossible to cheat when there aren’t any rules.”

“Only if you want to,” Arthur assures, ignoring Eames and tracing the delicate chain of the necklace down her skin to the drop of the pendant.

She chuckles at that. Pulls Arthur back close. She grabs up his hand in hers and lays a kiss on his worked-open palm.

Soft. Soft and warm.

“If I want to, huh?” She says, smiling and blushing again, eyes averted, head shaking slowly. “I’ve only wanted to since the first time I met you, Arthur.” And then her eyes rise again to meet his. “You don’t really notice subtle hints, do you?”

Arthur smiles, remembering their first meeting. He notices plenty. He’s just good at keeping business far removed from pleasure—at least he had been until recently.

Eames laughs and spins Amira in the direction of their hotel, arm circling around her at the shoulders as they walk. She dances ahead at times, laughing at some joke or story, returns to them at times, twining herself around one or another like a climbing vine, supporting herself on them in turns. And all the while she watches them. Arthur watches her watch them, her big dark eyes black holes that draw in all detail around her. Studying. Looking for the way things fit together—are built.

How long has _he_ wanted this? How many times has he idly thought of how it would be?

She leans, studying their twined hands and fingers as they wait in the elevator. She slouches against a wall, studying first Arthur, intently, then Eames as they break from a kiss and turn as one to study her in turn, the three of them safely locked away in the warm golden glow of their hotel room and free for this one night to take each other in completely. She slumps, studying the ceiling and letting the almost-empty bottle tip from her loose grip to seep into the bed, all of them beyond drunk off Arthur’s stash, drunk on each other, on the taste of skin and lips and on her slick and their spent release. Drunk.

“It’s a dream,” she says. “It’s like…it’s like a dream.”

Big eyes. Wells of ink, turning on him. And Arthur looks to Eames and sees him nod and he sinks the needle into her skin.

And they’d slept. They’d dreamed. Arthur isn’t sure whose idea it had been. He remembers himself proposing the idea. Hears Eames coming up with the plan. Recalls Amira’s voice… Amira’s voice….

“I don’t want this to end.”

And then someone had said… _someone_ …. 

“We should all go under together.”

And Arthur slips off with a needle in his arm and with her hand in his. He slips off and when he wakes again her body— _her body_ —is cooling already and stiff and it’s a struggle to slip her hand from his without hurting her. Without—

Hurting her, that’s funny. Hurting her, that’s real funny.

Hard to hurt someone you’ve already killed.

He looks up from her face at Eames’ “Oh god” but the image remains.

“She woke up,” he says. “While she— Long enough to get really scared—look at her eyes. But not soon enough to stop herself—”

He breaks off without noticing, eyes drawn back to that pale frozen face. To the fear there.

“Oh _god_ ,” Eames says again.

A horrible memory parades past Arthur’s traumatized consciousness. Amira, at the last club, talking to a stranger and exchanging something with them. Arthur’d been distracted. He’d forgotten. And he’d never seen her take—

Had she left them in the dream? Had she left them—died and they hadn’t even noticed? Had she died and remained on with them as nothing but a projection? Had there been some difference? Some shift? Why can’t he—

A lazy bubble of air pops up from her wet open mouth and he finds himself in the bathroom. He doesn’t remember running there. He finds himself over the toilet and purging himself of all but the image of her stiff, frozen face. He can’t remember her alive and moving. He hangs there, empty, every memory of her gone but what he wants gone most. That picture of her lying—

She’d drowned in her own puke. She’d drowned in it. She’d drowned, and—

He lets loose again, only bile coming up now but his body not ready to give up the fight. The smell of it— He can’t stand the smell of it, so close to the smell— He can’t—

Arthur hears Eames enter the bathroom and feels flecks of cold dirty water hit his cheek as the toilet flushes. He wipes across his face with his bare forearm and looks to where Eames is crouched beside him; shakes the comforting hand from his back.

“Guess I lose again,” he mutters, his throat raw and rough. “Couldn’t stop it—stop her getting hurt so… so I lose, I guess.”

He feels dead. Empty. And when he sees a tear fall down Eames’ cheek, down that baffled face, he feels his face draw up in disgust and can’t manage to stop it. He slaps away the hand that reaches for him; stands.

“I’m calling Graham.” He falls into the doorframe and rights himself. Turns back but can’t look at Eames. “Get dressed.” 

He takes two steps and almost falls again, his legs buckling. He forces himself upright. Forces a few more steps from his rebelling limbs.

“Gotta take care of her,” he says aloud, voice cracking, not knowing who he’s speaking to or why he’s speaking at all. “Gotta take care of her now.” 

His eyes land on the pendant, its silver only serving to make the pale skin look colder, and he trips. Falls. Doesn’t bother to pick himself back up. He crawls to his pants and his shaking hand finds his phone and his fumbling fingers find the numbers he needs but only on the third try. The lights of the city blur through a crack in the curtains.

“I’m sorry, Graham,” He whispers in this dark strange hotel room now; a whole different view outside the window of a whole different room, past the closed curtains. He never opened them. No need to look to know it’s the same shitty world out there. It's the same shitty world in here, after all. Nothing has changed. 

Everything has changed.

“I fucked up.”

He sees Amira in his memory. Sees her for a moment in a shadow on the wall. And now the tears come. Now they come.

“I’m sorry. I’m— I fucked up, okay?”

“No,” Graham says, both of them ostensibly admiring a sculpture while keeping an eye on Eames, in feminine disguise, as he cozies up to their mark. They’re in her children’s museum, a real pro-bono piece of work, and she has no clue she’s dreaming.

They’d got her under easily and with plenty of time to work—to try their luck in here. Things had gone smoothly. And if Arthur had felt his heart tripping and his breath running harder and harder to catch up as he felt the needle go in this time, well, that’s his problem, isn’t it? 

“ _I_ fucked up,” Graham goes on. “Amira was a big girl and you weren’t her keeper. She made her own choices. You don’t get to claim those, no matter how bad you feel about what happened.”

They walk unhurriedly to another sculpture with a good line of sight.

“What I’m trying to say is…I was wrong to say all that shit to you. I’m sorry for it. You’re the best point man I’ve ever worked with and I’d be lucky to work with you again….”

She leaves that again hanging in the air a moment too long.

“If,” Arthur says for her.

“If,” Graham continues, “you tie whatever game you have going with _him_ up and throw away the knot. I don’t have room for that shit on my team. That shit is an accident waiting to happen.”

She mercifully leaves off the again this time.

Eames laughs loud enough for the sound of it to carry, the sound feminine and light to match the character he’s playing; an art dealer their mark enjoys a flirt with now and again out in the real world. Eames is flirting now, and after Eames’ earlier tour of her little museum as an inspector—a tour which had found enough wrong to shut the place down if she couldn’t manage to drop a pretty penny on repairs, the offer Eames is dropping will seem like a lifeline. Eames laughs again and touches gently and gets to work, laying the bait. And miss Vivian Koss, their mark, eats it right up, hook and all.

Good.

He frowns.

He looks to Graham and nods instead of promising anything. The projections here are mostly children and it makes Arthur nervous and he can’t come up with any good reason why. Eames flirts and Arthur hates it and is impressed by it and Vivian Koss flirts right back with Eames and Arthur’s heart is beating too fast again—his mind racing. He holds it in—keeps his cool. She’s not the least bit suspicious; he, on the other hand, is nauseous.

She takes the offered card, willing at least to pretend to think about selling the paintings in order to get laid. Hopefully willing to think about her museum and its repairs. Willing to think of all the children she might be letting down. Of her dreams. She has a lot to think about, and because she does, Arthur forgives her lack of suspicion that Eames hands the card her way with a gloved hand.

A few projections look when she slumps, drugged, into Eames’ arms, but quickly turn back to the art. Eames secrets Vivian around the corner and into a back room where another PASIV machine is set up and waiting.

“Arthur,” Eames says, and is ignored. Arthur shakes Eames’ hand from his shoulder.

Now is not the time.

Now is the time for the needle. For the drop into a deeper dream. For the green of table felt and red of tumbling dice—the colors make bile rise up in the back of Arthur’s throat; the colors and the memories they spark. Men and women, dressed to the nines, twirl between the tables: blackjack, roulette, craps, poker, and they chatter as they fritter away chips like they’re worth only as much as the plastic they’re stamped from. It’s all going to a worthy cause, after all. All just a bit of fun while they do a bit of good.

Eames is gone, left to change into his next character, and Graham has stayed above for the kick. Arthur, alone, can relax for the moment. He looks around. The dream is different with Eames in control, but it’s familiar. It has the same plan, the same bones, holding it up. Bones Amira had given it.

And it’s beautiful. And it makes him sick how cleverly it’s built—how gracefully. 

He can’t think of her; moves instead among the crowd, knowing what has to be done. He’d known from the moment he’d seen Amira dead. He has to clean this mess that’s finally caught up to him. Has to clean house one more time.

He needs to get this job done first, any way he can, and then—

“Showtime, darling.”

A lean blonde woman closer to elderly than middle-aged squeezes Arthur on the shoulder—Vivian’s loaded godmother, leader of the philanthropic female aristocracy of Las Vegas and surrounding areas. Eames’ new disguise. Without another word Eames advances on their mark as she mingles through the crowd. Arthur watches Vivian smile when she sees Eames and pull the frail form he’s wearing in for a tight hug and a kiss on both cheeks. Arthur huffs a dark laugh and walks further off. Already sucking up for that favor, huh? What people won’t do when a bit of force is applied to the right leverage—when they’re desperate for a buck.

Like he has any room to judge her. 

He grabs a drink, not really caring that it isn’t real—won’t have any real taste or smell or effect. He’ll feel steadier with it in his hand and that’s enough.

Arthur watches for his cue—his clue to watch closer for a tell. Eames will make her think of secrets. Out of self-presrvation, those secrets will herd themselves into the most secure part of the dream—a safe in her father’s study. The whole of the dream is set up to funnel them there. And once he sees she’s filled that safe, he can end this. He moves in close enough to hear.

“The children’s art did _not_ sell the event last time, my dear, _I_ had to talk myself breathless to do _that_.” Eames holds Vivian’s hands with a motherly grip and gives them a fond squeeze. Then he tilts Vivian’s lowered chin up and gives her a warm smile. “Which I’ll do again, duck, of course—just give the word. But I can’t promise the guests I bring will spend any real money—there are a million charities and more that are vying for their interest as you well know.” And Eames leans in as if to impart some sage wisdom. “What you really need is something that will create a stir,” he says, winking.

“Like what?” Vivian replies, sighing. “I’m exhausted, Goodie—I can’t think. I put all my energy into this museum—into those kids—and it’s not going to be enough this time.” She looks away, wipes at her eye and laughs, a little wetly, when she turns back to Eames. “You have an idea, I can see it there on the tip of your tongue.”

Eames sticks out his tongue a fraction, gamely. Grabs her by the arm.

“You have something, child, that would sell for enough money to fund that little museum of yours for a hundred years. Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about, either.”

Vivian’s brow wrinkles in confusion and Eames dabs at his forehead with a napkin before leaning in even closer. It’s the signal. Arthur watches for the slightest movement, shift of the eye, of posture to show Vivian's anxiety at the secret she keeps. Everyone has a tell.

“Those paintings,” Eames says, and Vivian’s eyes shift to the study door, “Are doing nobody any good shut away as they are. Not your father’s legacy, no matter what he told you or thought—he was a bit of an idiot, your father, and don’t deny it—not the world, and you least of all, my dear. You least of all.”

Arthur has enough to go on. He moves slowly through the crowd and toward the door. It’s easier to think once he’s through it and away from the constant clink of chips—the thunder of dice. He walks behind the heavy wood desk to the one picture hanging on the wall and then he swings it aside.

A safe. _The_ safe. Amira’s safe. Eames’ safe—his last minute improvement to Amira’s blueprint. Vivian’s safe, filled with Vivian’s best-guarded secrets.

If they’ve done it, planted an idea deep enough for inception, this is where they find out.

Arthur uses the code that Amira had chosen. He opens the heavy door. Looks inside.

Of course.

“Well?” Eames says, bursting through the door a while later. “Have we—Arthur, what is this?”

Eames freezes in the doorway; on second thought comes fully through and shuts the door quietly behind him.

“What are you doing, love?”

“I’ve been sitting here,” Arthur says mildly, “Trying to remember whose idea it was to go under that night.” He leans back farther in the chair, eyes on Eames. “It’s all I can do lately, replay that memory over and over—we weren’t successful, by the way. She won’t sell. Got the location for the old man, though.” 

He tosses a folder Eames’ way and watches the man catch it on sheer reflex, not paying it a bit of attention. A knock sounds at the door. Eames reaches behind and turns the lock, just as absently.

“All there is for it, as far as I can see,” Arthur goes on, “is to stop loving you. Problem is, I can’t seem to do that either. It’s a real conundrum.” And at this he laughs, rubs his tired eyes. “We’ll see. Anyway, I wanted to tell you one more time while I still meant it.”

“Tell me what?” Eames says, voice flat with wary dread.

The knock comes again, louder.

And now it’s come down to it, Arthur can’t say the words. Not when he’s about to—

“You fucking know what.” 

Arthur looks to Eames, feeling the hate and love inside him burning on his face, unable to look away, unable to keep the expression blank or neutral or even ambiguous. Then he swallows and he feels some of the fear crawl up out of his chest and color his face a new shade. His eyes hold Eames’. Love wins out and he lets his face go soft, his voice following suit.

“You know what.” 

Arthur breathes out a slow shaking gust and depresses the button on the PASIV he’d brought in; feels the drowsiness sweep him off like a lullaby. He looks into Eames’ eyes to the last, and rides the wave of chemicals down into a deeper dream.

It’s a simple dream. He’s not an expert—not like Amira—and he’s not stable enough this deep for anything more anyway. It’s a dream of home, the one he’s building himself on land he’d bought and cleared for himself, shaped the way he wanted it—a good way to keep his hands busy in the lulls. A dream he’d never expected to achieve as an orphan back in the home. His own place. On his own land. Trees all around and even a little stretch of river he can call his own. He still can’t believe he’s done it, sometimes—hadn’t even seen a forest till he was eighteen and enlisted, and this one’s _his_ . He owns a _forest_. He knows every detail of the land, his land, and of the house—as much of it as he’d built so far at least. He knows every screw and board and beam. Every brush of paint.

He looks to the little mailbox as if maybe he’ll have received a letter, a bill, a junk offer. Then, remembering, knowing where he has to go, he walks down his driveway and toward his house. 

Steps sound on the gravel behind him.

“I won’t let you do it.”

“Eames?” Arthur spins to look back and finds Eames there waiting. “You followed me.”

Eames laughs, strained, and gestures with raised gun.

“Very good. Let none say you lack a firm grasp of the obvious, love." He looks away, the gun lowering a few inches. What smile had clung from the laugh dies as he continues. "You didn’t leave me much choice in that department, did you? What did you imagine I would do?”

“Not…” Arthur says, shocked at his own stupidity, “Not this.”

“Yes. Well. Let’s not get overly impressed just yet, shall we?” Eames says, halting a few steps from where Arthur stands. “I still haven’t stopped your little scheme, have I? Don’t even know what you mean to do—Arthur, this is insanity. You can’t simply force yourself to _stop_ _loving_ someone.”

“It didn’t work,” Arthur says. “Inception. Always knew it wouldn’t.” He turns and starts walking down the driveway again. Finishes his thought, mutters, mostly for his own ears. “Gotta be an inside job.”

The gunshot stops him in his tracks. He turns back, impatient and twitchy. He wants this over with. He’s scared enough as it is, goddammit.

“If I shoot you,” Eames says, “It’ll at least buy me some time.”

Arthur chuckles darkly. “Go ahead. Won’t stop me for long and you know it.”

Eames lowers the gun, running a hand over his face and gesturing to Arthur.

“Am I to gather that you’re planning to plant an idea in your own head then?” Eames says, clearly frustrated. He takes a step forward as if he means more but stops at the one, training a pleading look on Arthur. “Is that it? And what would this idea be, that you’d have yourself believe?”

Eames is pale. His face is serious, contemplative, the way it gets when he runs out of charm and is forced to show his true hand.

_You don’t love Eames._

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

_You never did._

“Have a nice...life, Mr. Eames.” He turns back toward his house, takes one step, and speaks one last time. “I’ll see myself out.”

He doesn’t turn around to say it. Doesn’t look back. He doesn’t know if he’s got a strong enough will for it.

_You won’t remember the night you met Eames._

“This won’t work, Arthur. It can’t.”

_You won’t remember the way his lips taste at the end of the night or in the morning._

“Arthur, please.”

_You won’t remember._

“I love you. How am _I_ supposed to stop loving _you_ , hmm? Tell me that!”

_You won’t remember that you love him._

Arthur bypasses the house for the garage. He hears the gunshot just as his hand touches the cool handle of the door—the thud of Eames’ body falling after; only hesitates a moment before turning the handle.

The car sits where it always does, black as an oil slick and twice as shiny. His car. His. He pulls out a key, unlocks the driver-side door, and climbs inside. He goes to adjust the mirror out of a habit grown from too much time spent in rentals, but of course it doesn’t need it. He wraps his hands around the supple leather of the steering wheel, grips it hard, eyes tight shut. After a bit he gets his breathing back under control.

Arthur sets his rigged red die on the dashboard and just stares at the contrast it makes, red on black, for a while. He doesn’t know how long he stares. Finally, he selects a small key with shaking hands and unlocks the glove compartment of his mind.

Time to wake up.

“What?”

“I said it’s time to wake up, Arthur. We’ve gotta go. Got a payment to collect.” 

Graham drops the shoulder she’d been shaking and nods to Eames as she passes him to pack up the PASIV. Eames is staring. Is just sitting there and staring at Arthur, eyes dead and glossy. Arthur nods and quickly busies himself with anything, uncomfortable under that gaze.

“Arthur,” Eames says, and Arthur turns a half-interested questioning gaze his way.

“Yeah?”

Eames strides over and pulls Arthur into a desperate kiss. Arthur, for his part, tenses for a moment, stunned, then slowly pushes Eames away.

“Okay,” he says, “I’m confused. Eames—”

“Right then,” Eames says, voice strained. “My apologies, Arthur. Goodbye.”

Arthur has barely seen the tear before Eames has it wiped away. Has barely opened his mouth before Eames is gone from the room. Vivian Koss sleeps on peacefully in her comfortable chair.

Graham looks to him with a raised brow and he can do nothing but shrug in reply.

It’s a quick wrap-up. Eames doesn’t end up showing when they present the old man with the location—Mr. Durant doesn’t even seem to care that their attempt at inception hadn’t worked; is already preparing a heist to retrieve the painting, ordering lackeys and receiving calls as he receives them at his ridiculous house. Graham stays mostly silent through the proceedings. Amira hangs over all.

When Arthur gets back to his room, he hops into the shower and stands there for who knows how long—till the water runs cold. He touches his lips, the feel of Eames kiss already fading but the memory sharp and cutting still. The water hides the tears pretty well. Pretty well, considering.

_My apologies, Arthur. Goodbye._

Considering what he’s given up, without even the consolation of forgetting.

_Goodbye._

He’d unlocked the glove compartment. Stared into the deepest, most secret corner of his mind, and found it so full of Eames that there could be no ripping it out to grow something new. Arthur knew it was useless—pointless—and that Eames could never ever know that he’d been unsuccessful.

Not if they were going to survive each other.

_You love Eames._

He turns the water off and steps shivering from the shower.

_You always have._

He lays awake all night staring up into the darkness above his bed, mind either blank or on fire.

_You’ll always remember the night you met Eames._

At every noise, he startles, fearing it will be followed by a knock, Eames’ knock, and that he won’t be able to stop himself answering.

_You’ll always remember the way his lips taste at the end of the night and in the morning._

He feels the kiss still on his lips each time he plays the memory back. It’s a ghostly sensation, something amputees might feel in the space that once held an arm or a leg.

_You’ll always remember._

In the morning, he packs and dresses and slicks back his hair and shines his expensive shoes and drives out of Vegas in a rental car. He heads for home, knowing it’ll be a little bit tainted by this, hoping it will be worth it. He doesn’t look back. He can’t.

_You’ll Always remember that you loved him._

Arthur looks up from his work now at the knock—from the little table in the little featureless hotel room of tonight. Looks up from the loaded red die that always lands on the ace; that he’d kept as his totem even if Eames—maybe because Eames— One more thing he should probably care about.

He rises from the table and goes to look through the peephole. The knock remains persistent.

Eames.

He opens the door with a sarcastic “can I help you, Mr. Eames?” only to be greeted with a reprisal of the last desperate kiss Eames had assaulted him with all those years ago. This time, however, Arthur isn’t strong enough to stop his automatic response. He grips back; gives back, kiss for kiss.

“Ha!” Eames says, beaming and backing off a step, almost tripping and slightly out of breath.

“Fuck,” Arthur mutters, wiping his grin into a scowl before Eames can see—can get the wrong idea.

“Why yes, thank you, that would be lovely—I can’t _believe_ how proficient an actor you’ve become, Arthur. I’m quite frankly astonished. How many years has it been?”

Ten.

“Don’t know. Wasn’t counting.”

Eames lays a theatrical hand across his breast as if to imply that he's crushed by Arthur’s indifference. Then he pulls a gun from his waistband and walks in, closing the door neatly behind him.

Asshole.

“I _was_ counting,” Eames says. He swings the chamber of the revolver open—very dramatic—to show three of the six chambers are live and Arthur has a bit more than a suspicion where this is headed. “The number you’re looking for is ten. Ten years, Arthur, with me under the impression that you hated me enough to resort to brainwashing.”

The chamber slams shut and is spun hard. It click click clicks to a stop in its own time.

“Oh, this is fun, isn’t it?” Eames says, eyes bright and throat taught with an anger that doesn’t show in his light voice. “What do you want to bet,” he says, “that I survive this?”

“I won’t do this,” Arthur says, swallowing and trying to inch forward. The gun cocks.

“No terms for me?” Eames replies. “Fine by me. How’s this? If I lose, you don’t have to go next. Fair?” He pauses a moment and Arthur refuses to fill the loaded silence. “Alright then,” Eames says lightly. “Here we go.”

Eames raises the gun to his temple.

“I’ve wanted to do this at least once every day since you played your little trick on me,” He says, eyes bright. His trigger finger moves minutely.

“Don’t,” Arthur finally says. The word jumps past his clamped-tight jaws. He has no control of its escape. Of it. He can’t let this happen.

“And why shouldn’t I?” Eames asks, voice grown hotter but trigger finger relaxed. “Because of this job? I only came because of you, you must know that. Should I stop because you’ve loved me, but not enough to spare me ten years of agony and loneliness and teetering on the very edge I’d danced before with you? Hmm? Why stop, Arthur? Convince me not to. And do make this good.”

“I did it to save us, okay!?” Arthur controls his volume, his desperation, before continuing. “I had to leave. Had to. To save you and anyone else that got too—” The ghost of Amira haunts the room briefly and Arthur shivers. “You knew where we were headed, same as me,” he accused. “But you didn’t—you wouldn’t— And I thought…somehow I thought that only I…. Look, you didn’t seem the type to dwell over a heartbreak, okay? I figured a month, two tops, and you’d have moved on.”

Arthur walks forward slow enough he wouldn’t have spooked a wild horse—something he’s still never seen—were one in the room with them. He gentles the gun from Eames’ temple, breath held until it’s pointed in a safer direction.

“You are positively idiotic sometimes, Arthur,” Eames says, voice subdued. Arthur feels him relax and lets up his grip on the gun, hoping he’s reading the man right.

“Ah well,” Eames goes on. “I win, I suppose.”

There’s a movement so swift that Arthur only registers it as his brain catches up to the blur. He finds himself staring down the barrel of Eames’ suddenly raised and leveled gun.

“It’d be your turn, then. That’s the wager.”

The sound of the shot never reaches Arthur’s ears. He must die quicker than sound.

He must, because he wakes, but not to the sound of a gunshot. It hadn’t even had time to hurt, particularly. He bolts upright more from the shock of it than anything else. Eames is in the chair beside him, still asleep, the both of them in the warehouse still where Arthur had stayed behind to run a test. Arthur dumps Eames sleeping body onto the ground before ripping the needle from his own arm. Sneaky sonofabitch. Arthur should have known—should have been prepared.

“Arthur is displeased,” Eames says, beaming up at him from the ground. He levers himself up to his knees. “Whatever shall we do?”

“God, shut up,” Arthur groans, wiping his hands roughly down his face. He looks Eames in the eye. Eames looks back, eyes as intense as ever. Maybe a few signs of the intervening years show on his familiar face, but not so many. Not so many.

Arthur gets up and walks to where Eames kneels—strange to see him kneeling in that expensive suit, but that’s Eames for you. He sinks down to kneeling before Eames, the knees of his own expensive suit growing just as dusty.

“I counted,” Arthur says. “I lied. I counted the time down to the day.”

“I never tracked you down,” Eames replies, grabbing up Arthur’s suit jacket and wrinkling the fabric in tight fists as he draws Arthur close. “I could have. I…respected your wishes—” Eames says the last as if it leaves a sour taste in his mouth. “—Such as they were. It wasn’t till I saw you again, till I caught a glimpse through the act you put on that I knew you’d been lying all this time.”

He leans in till his forehead rests against Arthur’s. Sighs at the contact.

“Yeah, well,” Arthur says. “Had to try. You’re reasonably good at reading people. I figured it was only a matter of time till you caught on.”

“Reasonably— Yes, I have missed you, Arthur, thank you for the compliment.”

Arthur laughs; grips Eames by the upper arms, seized by a sudden need for him to be closer—as close as possible. He pulls him in and then pushes him back away, thinking better of it. His eyes close of their own accord and he leans into the familiar scent of Eames, hands still holding tight. Can’t let him go. Can’t do it again.

“I remember,” he breathes, “The way your lips taste. I couldn’t forget. Couldn’t—”

Eames lips cut him off, meeting his and sealing off the words and Arthur gladly gives up on talking. And his memory hadn't failed him. He’d remembered the flavor clearly, all these years. Those lips taste almost exactly the same, now.

Eames is the first to pull away, and the smile he wears when he does is small and warm and genuine. Has Arthur ever seen this smile? Had he even once?

“ _I’d_ forgotten,” Eames says. “I laid up nights trying to remember the taste of you.”

Arthur pulls away again, holds Eames away, but still can’t let loose on his grip to back fully off.

“This is going to end just like it should have before,” Arthur warned. “You can feel…can’t you feel it?”

“The same,” Eames said, nodding, grinning manically. “It feels like it did. Just the same.”

The weightless feeling of freefall. Wind in his stomach and chest full to bursting, Arthur captures Eames lips again and comes away with a smile of his own.

“You told Cobb inception could be done. Still so sure?”

“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says with a laugh. “I’m so sure that I’d be willing to bet on it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Arthur says, standing and hauling Eames up with him. “It’s a bet, then.” And his hand gives up its grip, tentatively, ready to snatch Eames back up at a moment’s notice. “Question is, what are you willing to wager?”

The ever-present question. The only one that matters.

Arthur catches Eames' infectious laughter at the question. The both of them laugh, both a bit hysterical and it doesn’t even matter because they’re both here, together. Giddy. Arthur’s giddy. And the both of them are screwed. The both of them are royally screwed.

The ground is waiting on the both of them below.

And gravity always wins, in the end.

The house always wins in the end.


End file.
